Intel and IBM separately announced competing developments Friday described as one of the biggest advances in semiconductor chip design in about 40 years.

Using new materials and a new manufacturing process, changes not seen in 40 years, the two companies announced breakthroughs that would increase the speed and power of chips for another decade.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel is apparently much further along than IBM, saying it will launch new chips for computers, laptops and servers before the end of the year based on the advances.

One of the most important features is that the faster chips will consume much less power, a growing problem for some companies in the industry.

“It’s a real breakthrough … for both of them,” said Rick Doherty, research director of The Envisioneering Group in Seaford, N.Y. “I wouldn’t be surprised if members of these teams were up for the Nobel Prize.”

The news from both tech giants is proof that after almost seven years of industry research, transistors can be built using so-called high-k metal gates. Transistors are the simple on-off switches that process the ones and zeroes of electrical data on a chip.

Intel said that the development will ensure that Moore’s Law will thrive well into the next decade. Moore’s Law is the name given to a prediction by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, who said in the 1960s that the number of transistors on a chip would double every two years.

That prediction has proved to be an industry benchmark that has paved the way for faster, cheaper and more reliable computers, cellphones and other consumer electronics.

The retired Moore, 78, said in a statement Friday that Intel’s use of high-k and metal materials “marks the biggest change in transistor technology” since 1969.

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